Dealing with Braids, Cabal Minion

Braids, Cabal Minion, was banned in the Commander Format in 2009. Sixteen years later, it is one of five cards being unbanned as of today’s announcement. You can listen to Gavin Verhey’s full Commander Format update video to learn about all the unbans and changes made to the Game Changers list.

Of the cards unbanned, however, Braids is likely to be one of the toughest to get used to.

Braids has received a resurgence since her last card, Braids, Arisen Nightmare. This card was first printed in Dominaria United, and then again in the Duskmourn Precon.

Like her most recent printing, Braids, Cabal Minion is a “mutual sacrifice” card, which serves as a sacrifice outlet for you and a form of pseudo-removal for your opponents. However, since 2009, we’ve received numerous tools to address this type of ability. Not only are there a million ways to remove Braids, there are even some spells that can keep Braids in place as a stax piece on the other side of the field, while still having your opponents suffer. I assume we will see an uptick in decks led by this commander, so I’ll give you five cards printed between now and 2009 that can deal with Braids, Cabal Minion without removing it.

Note: each of these cards is linked to Scryfall, where you can view cards similar to it using the tagger feature and identify the best prices on different sites.

Consign to Memory is similar to Stifle, one of the original triggered-ability counterspells. While Stifle deals with both activated and triggered abilities, Consign to Memory allows you to counter colorless spells, making it somewhat more relevant in a world with more cumbersome Eldrazi and problematic artifacts. Consign To Memory goes above and beyond Stifle with the Replicate keyword, allowing you to deal with Braids, Cabal Minion’s annoying upkeep trigger, and any other annoying abilities that trigger on your upkeep.

Tishana’s Tidebinder is excellent for dealing with Braid’s not only because it can counter triggered abilities, but the ability is gone until Tishana’s Tidebinder leaves the field, allowing you to take control of Braids without literally taking control of her. A mono-black deck led by Braids will likely have a way to deal with the Tidebender, but correct timing can allow your opponents to feel the burn of Braids while your turn passes unscathed.

The Confluence cycle from the Streets of New Capenna Commander Decks is a flexible group of modal spells, and Brokers Confluence tends to be on the better side of that scale. While it does require you to be playing Bant, it not only lets you phase out Braids, but you can counter her ability as well, giving you two avenues of dealing with the effect.

Deny the Witch is one of many excellent Warhammer 40k cards that don’t seem as good as it is until you play them. The flexibility goes beyond cards like Stifle in that it lets you counter any spell, no holds barred, in addition to being able to counter activated abilities. Forcing someone to lose life equal to the creatures you control is just icing on the cake.

Tamiyo, Collector of Tales is a perfect example of Simic shenanigans. Pure value and recursion that also lets you ignore Braids for four mana is lovely, and the fact that Tamiyo’s +1 ability allows you to put 3-4 cards in the graveyard means she can empower Sultai decks.

Do you have any other tech that deals with Braids? Let me know in the comments or email [email protected]. See ya!